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HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

ResoluTions ov^ ih-i. aea"Th ©I Lwicoln. 



At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Historical Society of 
Pennsylvania held on Monday evening, April 24, 1865, the following Pre- 
amble and Resolutions were presented and read by Professor CHARLES 
D. CLEVELAND, and unanimously adopted. It wivs then moved that a 
Special Meeting of the Society be called on Thursday, the 27th, to consider 
the same. On that evening, EDMUND A. SOUDER, Esq., was called to the 
Chair, when the Preamble and Resolutions were again read, and were unani- 
mously adopted by the Society. 

Whereas, We recognize in tlie recent calamity that has fallen upon 
our Republic, in the violent death of our President, an event that not 
only calls forth a personal grief from every loyal heart, but rises above 
individual sorrow, and forms a crisis in our national life — an epoch in our 
national history. Therefore, 

I. Resolved, That it is peculiarly the duty of the Historical Society • 
Pennsylvania to inquire into the historic meaning of the sad occurrer •• 
that has thus suddenly overwhelmed us, — to read in it, as well as may ;• 
through tears, the lessons of the past of which it is the culmination, and 
the monitions for the future to which it sternly and undoubtedly points. 

■* 

II. Resolved^ That in the assassination of our beloved Chief Magistrate, 
our sorrow for the bereavement is as intense as our horror at the crime. 
A life has been lost which, by a blending of mental and moral qualities in 
a union of rare completeness, had a hold upon the heart of every loyal 
citizen, and made the tie that bound him to his government no less a per- 
sonal than a civic attachment ; and gratefully therefore do we bear our 
earnest testimony to the consummate ability, the enduring faithfulness, 
the political sagacity, the far-seeing wisdom, the lofty patriotism, the 
enlarged humanity, the proverbial honesty, and the ever-flowing goodness 
which marked the character, through his whole term of office, of our late 
honored and loved President. 



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III. Re^olval, That, — while with deep grief we mourn the loss of him 
who on the 22d of February, 1861, when he raised the national flag over 
the State House iu which our Constitution was framed, declared, with 
what now seems prophetic significancy, that " he would rather be assassin- 
ated upon the spot than fail to maintain the great principles of Constitu- 
tional Liberty;" and who, in the four years of his able and momentous 
administration, so nobly and firmly acted up to that declaration, showing 
at all times a heart beating in full sympathy with the objects of our Con- 
stitution as declared in its preamble, " to form a more perfect union, and 
to secure the blessings of liberty," and crowding into that brief period 
events and principles of deeper historic interest and of wider and farther 
reaching influence than were ever before, in so short a time, recorded in 
history. — it is peculiarly fitting in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to 
declare it to be their deepest conviction tbat, under God, it was the won- 
derfully attempered prudence and energy, justice and mercy, caution and 
decision, breadth of view and strength of purpose of Abraham Lincoln 
that led us triumphantly through the perils of this atrocious rebellion. 

lY. Resolved^ That, by his wise, persistent, and finally successful efi"orts 
in crushing the rebellion, and thus breaking down forever the vilest and 
most tyrannical oligarchy the sun ever shone upon, Abraham Lincoln 
has made American citizenship mean — protection to American citi- 
zens IN EVERY PORTION OF THE REPUBLIC; and that, by his Proclama- 
tion of the 1st of January, 1863, giving immediate liberty to millions long 
held in bondage, and by his large-hearted humanity, everywhere con- 
spicuous, he has earned for himself the richest of all blessings — " the 
blessings of those who were ready to perish;" and has thus engraved his 
name upon the page of history, for all time to come, as — THE friend 
OF man. 

V. Resolved^ That, when we view the parricide's crime, which has thus 
whelmed our nation in mourning, as the result of a cause — the natural 
outgrowth of some principle of action — History and its Philosophy utter 
no doubtful teachings : they say, as distinctly as voices from the past can 
say, that the murderous hand which took the life of the Head of our 
Republic is but the symbol of that stealthy, deadly blow which must 
always, sooner or later, be dealt to any Republic, when it either cares not 
or dares not to cast out from its midst elements that give the lie to the 
simplest and most fundamental conditions of political liberty; and that 
our land, as a whole, must either be a unity of homogeneous principles in 
its parts, or else be dashed into a shapeless wreck by the clashing currents 
within it. 



VI. Resolved^ That, in the long catalogue of crimes committed by the 
slave-power against liberty and humanity for the last fifty years — crimes 
too numerous to recount, and many of them too foul to particularize, — 
consummated in the rebellion, and all the atrocious deeds committed in it, 
and culminating in the murderous assault upon our Secretary of State and 
the Assistant Secretary, and in that crowning crime of horror, stealthily 
taking the life of our Chief Magistrate, this same slave-power has shown 
itself to the world in its true character in acts of malignity and wickadness 
unparalleled on the page of history ; and lias shown to us the utter incom- 
patibility of its existence with our own national life. 

VII. Resolved, That, as by tlie avowed declarations of the slaveholders 
themselves, wbo quoted the words of the Saviour, — " the stone which the 
builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner," — and with, 
bold but characteristic blasphemy applied these sacred, heaven-descended 
words to the foulest of crimes, intending to make it the " corner-stone " 
of a new government, — slavery was the cause and origin of the rebellion; 
and to extend it indefinitely, the purpose, by their own avowal, of those 
who aimed to destroy our national life; — so now it conclusively follows and 
should everywhere be held, that there can be no true patriotism without 
hostility to that " sum of all villanies," and a fixed determination that it 
shall never be the cause of another rebellion; and no longer, in any way 
or shape, curse our land. 



VIII. Resolved, That, while we tender to the wife and children of the 
illustrious deceased our sincerest sympathies in this their irreparable loss, 
and fervently pray that they may be sustained under it by Him who alike 
'' gives and takes away," we at the same time rejoice that he has bequeathed 
to them so rich and precious a legacy of public and private virtues, which 
they will ever fondly cherish, and which will grow brighter and brighter 
as time rolls on. 

IX. Resolved, That, to our honored Secretary of State, Hon. William 
H. Seward, who has conducted our foreign relations with such signal 
ability and wisdom in a period of unprecedented difficulty; and to his able 
and courteous Assistant Secretary, Hon. Frederick "W. Seward, both 
prostrated by the dagger and bludgeon of the assassin, we extend our 
deepest sympathies, fervently praying that a kind Providence may so 
restore them to health and strength, that tliey may be able again to labor 
for their country in years to come with the same ability as they have in 
years past. 



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X. Resolved, That, to our new President, Andrew Johnson, thus 
suddenly called to his high station, we pledge our earnest and cordial 
support ; with fervent prayers that he may be guided in all his varied and 
responsible duties by Infinite Wisdom : rejoicing that, in the patriotism and 
firmness of his past life, as well as in his recent public declarations that 
" treason is the highest of all crimes," we have the fullest assurance that, 
while he will show mercy to their misguided and deluded followers, he will 
visit the guilty authors and leaders of the rebellion, however numerous 
they may be, with the punishment they so richly deserve; so that thus 
peace, tranquillity and unity may be restored to every part of our land, 
and that thus a warning may be left to traitors for all coming time. 



On motion of Mr. Pliny Earle Chase, seconded by Mr, John A. 
McAllister, it was resolved that these Resolutions, signed by the officers of 
the Society, be published in three of our newspapers, and that copies, engrossed 
or printed, be sent to the Family of the deceased ; to the President of the United 
States ; and to the Secretary of State, requesting that they be deposited in the 
archives of the United States, in perpetuation of the sense of the Society upon 
our great national bereavement. 

Joseph R. Ingersoll, 

President. 
Samuel L. Smedley, 

Recording Secretary. 






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